And so we "beat it" through the downpour, sliding around in the oily Flemish mud, while the German guns began to drop whole kitchen-loads of "marmites" into a poor wrecked village five hundred yards to our left, from which they evidently suspected that our shots had come. As we slithered along, drenched to the skin, toward the "Villa Beausejour" and our waiting motor, we could hear the Captain of 75's letting off salvo after salvo at the farm-house of which the prisoners had informed him, while behind us Julia continued to explode at half-minute intervals. There was all the difference in the world between the dry short report of the big howitzer and the hollower, sharper, more penetrating explosion of the 75's. To-day I learned from the Captain of the 75's that his first few volleys had set the farm-house on fire. A lot of soldiers had come running to put the fire out. His guns kept on dropping and scattering these until, with a series of loud explosions, the whole farm-house had blown up. It turned out that it was not an officers' headquarters, but an ammunition store-house. As to our blockhouse, I understand that it was completely demolished, though whether or not it took the whole of Julia's twenty shells to complete the work I was unable to learn. VII IN THE FLEMISH TRENCHES HEADQUARTERS OF THE BELGIAN ARMY, LA PANNE, _Aug. 30_. To-day I was given the opportunity of comparing the trenches of Belgium with those I had visited in France. It was a very interesting contrast. Commandant L----, who still had me in charge, picked me up at my hotel at 10 o'clock in the morning. Proceedings were delayed while I insisted on taking a snap-shot of him in the nickel-steel skull-cap which he wore inside his khaki cap. More and more of the French officers are wearing these helmets, and he had just ordered his from Paris. It is an admirable protection, very tough, not at all heavy, tucked inside the sweatband of the cap and entirely invisible. If a bullet hits it straight point-blank it will, of course, penetrate and carry a piece of the steel helmet into the wearer's head with it. But a bullet hitting thus would be fatal anyway. While if the bullet is spent, or if it hits at an angle, the helmet will deflect it. [Illustration: Page 120 COMMANDANT L---- IN THE NICKEL-STEEL SKULL-CAP WHICH HE WORE INSIDE HIS KHAKI CAP] On the way to the trenches we stopped off at the Belgian aerodrome, where an Aviation Captain showed and explained to me the details of the Voisin and Nieuport machines, which were chiefly used, including the ingenious bomb-dropping mechanism and the wireless apparatus. The Belgians certainly deserve the utmost credit for the way in which they have developed their air service from nothing at the beginning of the war to a highly efficient aviation corps. But for that matter their whole army has been reorganized on an admirable basis.